SPEED IS KEY
by RaidenF
Summary: Raiden’s got a dream. A big dream. Although he knows it's probably impossible. But he won't stop trying. (And yes, title is referencing Jacksepticeye)
1. Chapter 1: Raiden's first race

**400KpH**

Even when I was small, I knew that was my goal.

Oops, sorry, where's my manners? I think they're around here somewhere… Ah! Found them! Anyway, to get introductions out the way, my name is Raiden.

What? Why are you looking at me so expectantly?

Oh, wait. That's why.

Well, I'm a pure white Nissan GT-R. I have blue eyes, and my wheels are the standard wheels that come with my model. At least, at the start of the story anyway.

We're done here, right?

Okay, good

Back to the story

I was born in Japan in 1995, my mother a Toyota and my father, like me, a Nissan. They say my white colour came from my mother, and the blue eyes from my dad. Although, my passion for speed came from both of them. My mother was always involved in drifting competitions, while my father seemed to only compete in street races. It was when my Dad's friend convinced him to come along to a drift competition that my parents met, and even though they say it was love at first sight, anyone who was there at the time would tell you they straight up hated each other. But my father must've done something right, otherwise I wouldn't be speaking to you know, would I?

In 1997 we moved from Japan to Ireland. Everything was colder there, but it was fun, nonetheless. I met Sean there, a cerulean blue Aston Martin Vanquish. He had green eyes, and, although his parents weren't really involved in racing, he also seemed to love speed and everything related. We became really good friends over the 6 years that I stayed there. Even afterwards, when we moved to London in 2003 because my Dad had been promoted at work, we stayed in touch, and our future seemed far away. But, in 2010, when I started racing, well...certain faecal matter hit the fan.

"Hey you, dontcha think you're a little small to race?" A fiery red Mustang said, pulling up to the line next to me.

"Aren't you a little old to be trash talking a young child like me?" I shot back, giving him a cold look.

"What'd you say!?" he shouted angrily

"See? You can't even hear what I'm saying, definitely old age."

"Leave him," a silver Honda NSX said, pulling up on my right, "He's just a child Brett, he's naive and overconfident."

"Hey!"

"Alright," Brett said, obviously ticked off, "But I'm still going to beat you so hard you'll think you've stalled at the line," he looked to me with an extremely angry look on his face. I bit my tongue so that I wouldn't give some witty and intelligent comeback to that.

Two other cars had pulled up, one green the other with a bunch of stickers, but I couldn't make out what kind of cars they were. Brett and the NSX were blocking my view.

"Are you ready?" a small female red car asked. In response we all revved our engines.

"Ready," she switched on her neon and rode off the street in front of us, revealing a similar yellow car behind her.

"Set," the yellow car mimicked the first girl's actions, while I narrowed my eyes as I revved my engine.

"Go!" the last green car said excitedly, and we were off. I had the advantage off the line, with my four-wheel drive, while the others seemed to take just an extra second as their wheels spun in an attempt to find some grip on the tarmac.

The track was along the streets of London, a simple circuit with a few tricky turns, not very long either. Our race was 3 laps of the street circuit, with traffic.

Well, it is called "Street" racing.

With my short lead I rounded the first corner, sliding slightly. Thankfully there wasn't much other cars along this road, but I couldn't take an arrow-straight line down it either. 3 corners later, Brett had somehow found his way beside me, in terms of position. Most other times there was another car between us but they weren't part of the race so it was fine. My lead had been at least a metre from my rear bumper at the start of the race, now it was none but a bumper. Or, maybe slightly more. I was kind of just trying to win at the time. Anyway! My point was that I didn't have much of a lead at the moment, if any.

A lap later and my lead hadn't changed much. Although, there was one sharp corner that the other cars seemed to find extremely difficult. Going down the back straight I thought about it and then I realized I could take advantage of some talent which had been acquired through my parents. I smirked, and after getting past a very surprised truck, I rode as fast as I could to the turn.

 _"Handbrake, then throttle control. That's how you drift."_ I heard my mother's voice in my mind. I followed mind mom's instuctions, and sure enough, I took the sharp right-hander quicker than my brain could realise. By the time I exited the turn, I thought I was still in the middle of it. That in turn increased my lead by about 3 metres, which may not be that long, but trust me, 3 metres is win or lose in some races. With that being said, I managed to hold the other cars off long enough for me to win my race. I rode over to my dad, who looked extremely happy.

"Congrats Raiden! Not many can say they won their first ever race, not even me!" my dad said, lightly nudging my bumper with his tyre.

"What? You didn't win your first race?" I asked, raising my eyebrow lid thing.

"Nope. Came third. Out of two cars racing" Dad said, with a serious face.

"Lies." I said, almost reflexively

"It's true! In my first race my left rear tyre burst so I couldn't even finish" Dad said, smiling awkwardly at me. I think he wasn't too happy about it.

Now, dear reader, you may be confused as to how a little 15 year old Nissan GT-R managed to beat a Mustang and an NSX, both of which were experienced street racers, without NO2 or rockets instead of exhausts.

Well, I'll tell you.

When I was 13 my father took me to a workshop, where they fitted bigger turbos to my engine, and then a year later he took me back there and they fitted a titanium semi-racing exhaust instead of my old one. Finally, 2 weeks before the race we went back for some adjustments to my suspension, where they fitted adjustable suspension instead of my usual one, and they set my ride height a bit lower than usual. Strangely it didn't feel any less comfortable.

All that gave me just enough to win the race by 0.78 seconds, and yes, we did time it.All was well, my racing career was starting, (although it only consisted of street races) I was being trained by my mother on how to drift, everything was lovely, until one day...


	2. Chapter 2: Oh hey! It's Sean!

**So uh...this one has been here for a bit of a while, but I never got the chance to post it...so apologies for keeping it from you. I hope you enjoy, even though there isn't much to this chapter. Although, there is a** **BUNCH** **of references to other fanfictions on this site, so...see if you can spot them! ;P**

 **[BREAKING THE LINE HERE, DON'T MIND ME]**

 **Oh hey! It's Sean!**

 _All was well, until one day…_

"Raiden! What're you doing?" I heard my father ask as he drove into my room

"Watching the rally race thingy Dad! Look! Harley Davis Stockrim is busy with her lap!" I said excitedly, motioning to the TV with a tyre.

"So what, do you want to try rallying?"

"Slightly" I said, glancing at my Dad sheepishly. He stayed silent, and for a second the TV was the only thing that was making a sound in the room.

"So, tell me about this Harley person" Dad said, riding over next to me to get a better look at the screen

"Well, she won…" I began, and I told him everything I knew about Harley regarding her racing career. My dad seemed impressed, and after my small lecture he left, leaving me to watch the TV in peace.

[BREAKING THE LINE]

 _The next day…_

Today was a Saturday, also the day Sean would be coming to stay for the next two weeks. I was so excited! I hadn't seen Sean in about 3 years! (We went to Ireland for the holidays 3 years ago)

"What time are we gonna go?" I asked my father, bouncing slightly on my tyres.

"They'll only get here at around 12 o' clock Raiden. Be patient" he said calmly

"Mother, what time is it?" I looked to my mother, who was looking at some book.

"10 o' clock. Why don't you go practice your drifting out back for a while Raiden?" She said, only glancing at the clock before looking back at her book.

"Alright," I said with a sigh. I was pretty confident by now with my drifting technique, my only problem was 90 turns. Somehow they didn't work well for me. Oh well.

 _Exactly 12:04pm_

 _Airport_

I had been bouncing on my suspension for about 5 minutes. I was so darn excited. My mind wandered to all the fun stuff I could show Sean.

There's the London Eye, Big Bentley, there was even some racetrack I heard of, and so many other cool places I knew of! And I could introduce him to some friends! Ooohhh this was gonna be so fun!

Approximately a minute later (exactly 57 seconds, but anyway) I saw the curve of a Vanquish's bumper and the cerulean blue of Sean.

"Hey Sean! Over here!" I called, drawing the attention of a nearby orange Audi, but she shrugged her tyres and drove off to her flight.

"Raiden! Holy crap it's been a long time!" Sean said when he pulled up in front of me

"3 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 4 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes and 3 seconds," I said in a monotone voice. Sean's eyes widened.

"Do you like counting?" He asked hesitantly, as if fearing the answer

"Bruh I just did some math," I deadpanned, as Sean's father, who was a lime green Jaguar F-type, came to a stop next to his son.

"Hello there Katsuo, Rin. Hey there Raiden," Sean's father greeted my parents before looking at me.

"Hello Uncle Jack! How have you been?" I asked politely

"I've been okay, how about you? Still racing?"

"Of course!" I answered, receiving a small chuckle from the Jaguar.

"So, where do we go first? I hope it's a restaurant, unless Rin's cooking. I'm starving," Uncle Jack said, smiling. Every time I saw him, he was smiling. He was a really nice car.

"Then today's your lucky day Jack! We're off to a restaurant not far from here. C'mon, let's go!" Dad said enthusiastically, which made my mother laugh. She shook her hood and followed after Dad. I looked at Sean.

"Come on Sean, I don't wanna get left behind at the airport. That would suck for a first day in London for you," I said, revving my engine lightly

"Yeah yeah, I'm following," he said, riding ahead of me, "We should race each other one day."

"Sure, we could do that today, or tomorrow, or this week-"

"I mean like at a professional level. As in maybe in the Horizon Cup, or the Piston Cup, or even the European Circuit," he said, looking at me with a serious expression on his face

"Yeah sure. It'll take some time though. But uh, could we still have that other race? Y'know, the one where we don't have to wait like 5 years to compete in?" I asked.

"Of course! But you better get a good look at my face now, 'cause you're not gonna see it then!" he taunted

"Keep dreaming tractor," I retorted.

 _A few days later…_

"Hey Raiden, you said you had something special planned for today?" Sean said, while I stared at the TV.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Right. Well it'll only happen this afternoon. So, uh, relax for now," I replied, honestly just trying to watch the TV more than anything. I was watching the Piston Cup. At the speedway, it was like the middle of the night or something, and here it was early morning. Sean had woken up shortly after me, when I had accidentally knocked into the corner of the TV stand trying to switch the darn thing on.

"You could at least tell me now. Then I'd know what to expect," he said, trying to get information out of me. I sighed.

"What's on the TV?" I asked flatly

"The Piston Cup," he answered, a bit confused by my question

"And they do _what_ in the Piston Cup?" I continued, hoping he wasn't dumber than I thought

"You're taking me to a race?" he asked, raising a lid

"Well you did say you'd never been in a race before, even though you modified yourself," I replied, still staring at the screen

"Is this the race we talked about the other day?"

"Kinda. There'll be some other cars involved as well, but you'll be fine. Don't worry,"

"So, I'm gonna race...with you...and some other cars neither of us knows, and you'll probably win, and I'll be stone dead last," he said, not having much confidence. It seemed like he had already given up, as he sunk onto his tyres. He sighed a long, disheartened sigh, while I looked at him out the corner of my eye. Kept my focus on the TV though. I was sure he'd be fine.

Pretty sure.

You know if he just races properly he'll be fine.

Quite sure he'd be fine.

Yup, positively 80% sure he'll be a-okay.

I think.

[BREAKING THE LINE]

 _Later…_

 _In some backstreet in London…_

I pulled up to the line a bit more confidently than _certain_ other racers here. Was it really _that_ hard to do? At least _try_ to look confident. I feel like bringing Sean was a mistake. He pulled up next to me, nervously looking at the other, bigger racers. One was a black Lotus Exige, another was a silver Honda HSC. Honestly, even I felt a little intimidated. A black 1965 Mustang pulled up next to the Exige, probably the last racer we were waiting on.

"Raiden, help me," I heard Sean whisper to me.

"Okay, jeez. You're such a G-Whiz," I said, sighing

"What did you say?" Sean asked, apparently all his fear gone at the insult.

"Nothing, just said that you're just a G-Whiz," I shrugged my tyres, "You know, being scared of a little race and all."

"Now you listen to me young lad. I am not scared. In fact, I'd bet my bonnet and doors that I'd beat ya. So don't come and tell me I'm scared," after Sean had finished monologing, a purple Nissan Silvia drove in front of us.

"Racers, start you engines!" she said, her eyes moving over each one of us. Although they lingered a little longer on me and Sean.

"Are you ready?" She seemed to ask me, so I revved my engine in response. Apparently causing some random weirdo in the small crowd behind us to faint. Some Fiat, I don't know. Don't even ask why, maybe it was a coincidence.

"On your mark," the Silvia said, slowly driving off to the side.

"Get set…" I revved my engine, wanting to get the best start. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea.

"Go!" she shouted, and off we went. Sean was actually able to keep up, and I was proud. The Mustang had creeped out in front and taken a slight lead. I wasn't worried though. This race was a little different. This race, instead of being like your usual circuit race, was sort of like a sprint race, except with a few differences. In this race, they gave you a starting point and a finish line. You chose the route. For this particular race, there were three popular routes. One was the backstreets, the roads less traveled by everyday cars. It was longer, but usually had quieter traffic. The next was the direct route, much shorter than the backstreet option, which used the main road. Although, being a main road, there was more traffic. The last option was basically a route that was between the other two in terms of length and traffic. It wasn't as long as the backstreets option, but wasn't as short as the main road. Traffic wasn't bad, wasn't good either. Like I said, it was sort of the middle ground when you couldn't decide between traffic or distance.

Good choice was key to this race. You could take the backstreets option and lose because the mainroad had less traffic that day, or you could take the middle ground route and win because traffic was light and the others seemed to just not be able to get through in time.

You might not have been the fastest car in the race, but a good choice could at least make you seem like it.

Well, unless you'd done your homework.

For instance, during peak hours, main road traffic was extremely heavy. But right now, it wasn't. Although, I sorta remember there was something going on today...Might not be though...

I'll play it safe.

I'll take the backstreets.


End file.
